Category: Business

By Brent Snavely, Detroit Free Press – DETROIT — Chrysler earned $381 million in the third quarter, an 80 percent improvement from a year earlier, the company said Monday, as both sales and…

By Troy Wolverton, San Jose Mercury News – SAN FRANCISCO — Microsoft on Monday attempted to jump-start its flagging smartphone efforts, launching a new version of its mobile operating system along with a…

By Shan Li, Los Angeles Times – Shopping giant United Parcel Service Inc. said holiday shipping will jump 10 percent as consumers increasingly turn online to buy gifts for the season. The company…

By Bill Ward, Star Tribune (Minneapolis) – MINNEAPOLIS — For years, we couldn’t get away from them, or at least get them unstuck from our craniums. They were mm-mm-good, the best part of…

By Laura J. Nelson, Los Angeles Times – “Rachel from Cardholder Services” may not be calling you anymore. A federal court order Thursday morning temporarily halted operations at five telemarketing firms that…

By Brent Snavely, Detroit Free Press – DETROIT — Hurricane Sandy forced thousands of auto dealers in the Northeast to close, cutting industry sales by about 30,000 in the final days of…

By Shan Li, Los Angeles Times – Shoppers handed retailers a healthy sales gain in October before Sandy pummeled the East Coast, but questions remain about how recovery efforts after the storm…

By Tiffany Hsu, Los Angeles Times – Uncooperative weather has damaged grapes worldwide, causing global wine production to shrivel 6.1 percent to its lowest point since 1975, according to a Paris trade group….

By Joe Flint, Los Angeles Times – One of the most popular new shows of the fall television season is NBC’s “Revolution,” a drama about post-apocalyptic America. But the real revolution is how…

By Cindy Krischer Goodman, The Miami Herald – Ashley Maddox boards a bus and heads to work at a restaurant in Miami’s South Beach, a chore that can take up to 1 1/2…

By Mark Davis, The Kansas City Star – Working up a holiday shopping list? New cellphone, iPad Mini, Netflix subscription — check, check, check. Now don’t forget the wireless plan that makes all…

By Steve Alexander, Star Tribune (Minneapolis) – QUESTION: My Internet Explorer browser recently started opening a new window for advertisements from “servads.com.” I have enabled the pop-up advertising blocker, but it doesn’t seem…

By Noah Matthews, McClatchy-Tribune News Service – Sometimes I think software developers stay up nights dreaming of ways to flummox the trusting masses. Free software programs have their share of bugs, even when…

Jim Spencer, Star Tribune (Minneapolis) – WASHINGTON – In his first 30 years as a labor lawyer, Harold Weinrich rarely advised corporate clients to lock unionized workers out of their jobs. In the…

By Reid Kanaley, The Philadelphia Inquirer – Benefits — from your employer, your health insurer, the government or other sources — are sometimes hard to keep track of. But knowing what benefits you…

By John Boudreau, San Jose Mercury News – TOKYO — The first wave of terror struck shortly before 3 p.m. on a Friday. “The ground, the thing that doesn’t move, was moving,” recalled…

By Jerry Hirsch, Los Angeles Times – Strong profits in the U.S. are offsetting growing losses in Europe, Ford Motor Co. reported Tuesday. The automaker posted third-quarter net income of $1.6 billion, or…

By Arielle Kass, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution – United Parcel Service Inc. acts with such precision that it famously minimizes the number of left turns drivers take and is installing keyless start and entry…

By David Pierson, Los Angeles Times – YANTAI, China — The five schoolboys weren’t of legal age to work on an assembly line. But when their vocational school sent them to a Foxconn…

By Alejandro Lazo, Los Angeles Times – Home prices in the nation’s largest cities rose from July to August, according to a closely watched index, adding to a turnaround in housing this…

By Andrew Tangel, Los Angeles Times – NEW YORK — U.S. stock markets plan to reopen Wednesday after being shuttered for two days following the arrival of Hurricane Sandy. The New York…

By Jim Puzzanghera, Los Angeles Times – WASHINGTON — The Labor Department said it hopes to release October’s unemployment report on Friday as scheduled, despite the closure of the federal government on Monday,…

By Diane Stafford, The Kansas City Star – This is a must read for women graduating from college: Don’t assume your first pay offer will be the same as what a similar male…

By Jim Puzzanghera, Los Angeles Times – WASHINGTON—Consumer spending rose 0.8 percent in September, the third straight monthly gain and the biggest increase since February, the Commerce Department said Monday. Personal consumption expenditures…

By Ellen Jean Hirst, Chicago Tribune – Halloween candy sales are expected to be higher this year than any time in the past decade, a treat for an industry seeing 1 to 3…

By Russ Britt, MarketWatch – LOS ANGELES — Getting a handle on how long it’ll take to recover from the Great Recession is more art than science, but a few economists think there…

By Mark Phelan, Detroit Free Press – The U.S. government has set tough fuel economy standards for cars and trucks, and Detroit’s automakers couldn’t be happier. What mad world is this? The famously…

By Brad Bergholdt, McClatchy-Tribune News Service – QUESTION: I am the owner of a 1992 Cadillac Allante, so I could ask you hundreds of questions about the unusual things that car does. But…

By Kathleen Lynn, The Record (Hackensack, N.J.) – When Helen Berkenbush’s husband began having health problems in 2008, the Clifton, N.J., couple decided to rev up their efforts to wipe out the mortgage…

By Nedra Rhone, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution – There’s a 2001 GM Chevy Suburban parked in Melissia Perry’s garage. Next to that is a ’68 Ford Mustang. Inside her Woodstock, Ga., home are fully…

By Cindy Krischer Goodman, The Miami Herald – Most days, real estate agents storm into Ron Shuffield’s office with problems. They might have a closing that’s about to blow apart or a commission…

By Chuck Myers, McClatchy-Tribune News Service – Finding a solution to personal debt is not always easy. Careful debt management and consolidation, however, can help individuals rein in the debt burden. Several websites…

By Jessica Guynn, Los Angeles Times – Federal charges that New York businessman Paul Ceglia engaged in a multimillion-dollar scheme to defraud Facebook Inc. and its founder could bring to a close a…

By Jim Puzzanghera, Los Angeles Times – WASHINGTON — Despite looming tax increases and budget cuts, Americans felt better about the economy this month than at any time in the past five years…

By Amy Martinez, The Seattle Times – SEATTLE — Amazon.com Inc. said Friday it will begin collecting sales taxes in Arizona next February, ending a year-old dispute with the state over a $53…

By Kevin G. Hall, McClatchy Newspapers – WASHINGTON — Better-than-expected economic growth numbers from the government were spotlighted on the campaign trail Friday, yet economists fretted that a looming congressional showdown over taxes…

By Claudia Buck, The Sacramento Bee – Changes in estate tax laws can be extremely confusing. This week, Sacramento, Calif., estate planning attorney Kay Brooks answers a reader’s question about how to preserve…

By Rex Huppke, Chicago Tribune – Every office has a person who has taken a few too many drags on the pep pipe. A manager or co-worker whose sunny disposition can cloud an…

By Diane Stafford, The Kansas City Star – There’s a lot of talk about how students and job hunters should train for the “hot jobs.” So, what are they? Too bad there’s no…

By Liz Reyer, Star Tribune (Minneapolis) – QUESTION: My company has announced a new strategic direction. The approach seems to make sense, but I’m having trouble figuring out how it applies to my…